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Square Enix shuts down Shinra Technologies, Planet is saved

Members of the eco-terrorist resistance group AVALANCHE can rejoice. Shinra Technologies is no more.

Square Enix has pushed the off button on their cloud-based gaming division, which happens to share the same name as the villainous weapons manufacturer and energy supplier from Final Fantasy VII. Square announced an “extraordinary loss” of 2.2 billion yen, or 18.5 million dollars.

Shinra was established back in 2014 to provide technology solutions that let developers process games through the cloud. The division was headed by Yoichi Wada, former president of Square Enix from 2000-2013. Dissolution of the Tokyo and U.S assets are to be completed by March 31st and 30th June 2016, respectively.

A few developers were working with Shinra to accelerate the development of its technologies. Among them were Camouflaj, the independent studio behind the mobile stealth thriller Republique, Human Head, the team behind Prey, and Hardsuit Labs, creators of the free-to-play shooter Blacklight: Retribution. Shinra was also nominated for Japanese trade association CEDEC’s engineering award for 2015.

“STI, as a cloud platform operator, has been trying to raise funds necessary for further business operations from third party investors,” Square Enix said. “However, STI has found no prospective investors at this point, and therefore has to discontinue its business.”